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In my professor’s eyes: Faculty and perceived impoliteness in student emails

In my professor’s eyes: Faculty and perceived impoliteness in student emails AbstractImpoliteness in student emails to faculty can have negative consequences. However, the nuances of perceived impoliteness by faculty with different language backgrounds have not been thoroughly studied in the literature. This paper explores how emails written by non-native English-speaking students are perceived impolite by faculty depending on social identity variables such as native speaker status, gender, and seniority. Participants (n = 152 faculty) read six emails and rated their perceptions of the emails on a questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were about lack of face enhancement, use of face threat, acknowledgment of imposition, and not giving a choice in complying with requests. Results suggest that in their perceptions of the lack of face enhancement, senior faculty seemed to be more tolerant than their junior counterparts. Further, non-native speakers of English were found to be more tolerant of the lack of acknowledgment of imposition. However, no significant association was observed between the social identity of the faculty and their perception of face threat nor between social identity and giving a choice in complying with requests. The paper has implications for raising the awareness of the faculty and students about their potential biases in academic correspondence. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Lodz Papers in Pragmatics de Gruyter

In my professor’s eyes: Faculty and perceived impoliteness in student emails

Haider, Iftikhar; Zandi, Hamed
Lodz Papers in Pragmatics , Volume 18 (1): 26 – May 1, 2022
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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
ISSN
1898-4436
eISSN
1898-4436
DOI
10.1515/lpp-2022-0009
Publisher site
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Abstract

AbstractImpoliteness in student emails to faculty can have negative consequences. However, the nuances of perceived impoliteness by faculty with different language backgrounds have not been thoroughly studied in the literature. This paper explores how emails written by non-native English-speaking students are perceived impolite by faculty depending on social identity variables such as native speaker status, gender, and seniority. Participants (n = 152 faculty) read six emails and rated their perceptions of the emails on a questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were about lack of face enhancement, use of face threat, acknowledgment of imposition, and not giving a choice in complying with requests. Results suggest that in their perceptions of the lack of face enhancement, senior faculty seemed to be more tolerant than their junior counterparts. Further, non-native speakers of English were found to be more tolerant of the lack of acknowledgment of imposition. However, no significant association was observed between the social identity of the faculty and their perception of face threat nor between social identity and giving a choice in complying with requests. The paper has implications for raising the awareness of the faculty and students about their potential biases in academic correspondence.

Journal

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics – de Gruyter

Published: May 1, 2022

Keywords: email communication; impoliteness; perception; native speaker; gender; senior faculty

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